Homeless Working Group

Rome Meeting

   

The European HomelessGroup, set up by the Hospitaller Order’s Europe Commission for the three-yearperiod 2016-2018 to follow up the Grundtvig “New faces of poverty” project financed by theEuropean Union in 2013-2015, convened in Rome, on Wednesday, 4 October fortheir annual meeting.

 

This working groupwas created to facilitate coordination, share programmes and widely publicise informationon the work of the Order’s 25 centres in Europe caring for people at risk ofsocial exclusion, marginalisation and homelessness.

 

Dr Carlo Galasso –member of the Hospitaller Order’s Europe Commission – coordinated the meeting,which was attended by representatives of the directors and officials of the followingcentres: Serafino Nizza (President of the Pampuri Night Shelter in Brescia), Miguel Neves (Olallo House,London), Matúš Ferenčík (StJohn of God House in Bratislava), Laura Guijarro (SJGSocial Services, Barcelona) and Georges Kammerlocher (SJG Night Shelter, Marseille).

 

The meeting wasbriefed on the latest projects being promoted in the Centres over the pastyear: a research project on programmes to support precarious workers (the Order’scentres in Barcelona, Valencia and Murcia), the outpatient healthcare unit setup at the Marseille Night Shelter, the construction of temporary low-costhousing in Bratislava in partnership with a team of local architects, the carebeing provided by Olallo House in London to take in trafficked non-EU citizens,and the refugees’ and asylum-seekers’ integration project in Brescia.

 

The members of thegroup stressed the importance of setting up a communications platform (forexample, a blog site, Facebook page or website) for publishing and sharing themany facilities in the Order’s European Centres for the homeless, and tofacilitate bilateral visits and contacts between all the people working in receptioncentres. In 2018, the members will reconvene to select and activate the bestcommunications tool, and to debate a potential joint strategy for the Order’s EuropeanReception Centres. 



 

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